Leonard Has a Message: 'Get Show on the Road'

By Ed NicklasBy Ed NicklasMay 18, 1986

In response to comments by Marvin Hagler that he is going to "lick [his] chops" and perhaps wait a month before announcing if he'll fight Sugar Ray Leonard, Leonard said last night that the "ego is on" Hagler and the two should "get the show on the road."

While Hagler was hosting NBC's "Saturday Night Live" last night, Leonard was less conspicuous, being honored at a benefit dinner for the Sports Medicine Foundation at the District's Departmental Auditorium.

Surrounded by the likes of boxing promoter Don King and television star Robert Guillaume of "Benson," Leonard said: "He claims I'm egotistical. The ego is on him. He wants to dictate what is happening. He can take it all if he wants to. I just want him."

Leonard said he would be ready to fight Hagler by September.

"I'm saying, 'Hagler, let's do it. I have an ego. You do, too. Let's get the show on the road.' "

Leonard said the only personal contact he's had with Hagler is a telegram he sent before he made the public announcement that he would come out of retirement if he could fight Hagler. In the telegram, Leonard said he challenged Hagler to a fight.

Hagler's manager, Pat Petronelli, said last week that "there were some complications" involving a proposed bout between Hagler and Thomas Hearns in November that might interfere with a Leonard-Hagler bout, "but nothing that can't be worked out."

Hearns and Hagler's advisers were close to finalizing an agreement before Leonard made his announcement.

Of that, King said: "Who wants to see Hagler-Hearns? I mean, Hagler destroyed him. The way he destroyed Hearns, I don't know how they could put him back in the ring. If I tried to promote a Hagler-Hearns fight, they would put me back in jail."